


Introduction: The Highlander Universe

by Wilusa



Series: Origins [1]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:13:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4500294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilusa/pseuds/Wilusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This synopsis of relevant background is intended for potential readers who either know nothing about Highlander, or haven't thought of it in years and would appreciate a quick "refresher course." It includes spoilers for both Highlander: The Series and Highlander: The Raven!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introduction: The Highlander Universe

Expanding on what I'll say in my Summary: If anyone unfamiliar with _Highlander_ might consider reading my fan fiction based on it, here's what you'll need to know. It won't enable you to understand every reference to characters and incidents, but you will get the sense of what's going on.

 _However_...no one who actually means to look at either _Highlander: The Series_ or _Highlander: The Raven_ should read this first! _It contains major spoilers._

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Hero Duncan MacLeod belongs to a mysterious race called Immortals. (I use the term "race," but in appearance, they can be of any race.) They're all presumed to be foundlings - _and_ believed to be _sterile_ , which makes their origin even harder to explain. After their "first death" (which usually comes at an early age, and always by accident or violence), they cease aging, and almost all types of injuries heal within minutes. Another unique feature: they can sense one another.

They can only be killed permanently by beheading, or explosions in which the head is blown to bits along with everything else. When one Immortal beheads another (or is _near_ a decapitation), he or she receives - via bolts of lightning - all the "power" of the Immortal who's been killed. This is known as a "Quickening." It doesn't work very consistently. It sometimes does and sometimes doesn't include knowledge possessed by the deceased Immortal, even aspects of his or her personality.

Some Immortals in our era believe that a final few will ultimately be compelled to fight one another, in a battle called the "Gathering," until only one survives. The victor will - theoretically - have the power of all members of their race, and will receive some sort of "Prize." Among those who believe in it, guesses at the nature of the Prize range from becoming _mortal_ (which some would consider desirable) to becoming ruler of the world.

No Immortal will really have the power of all. When an Immortal is beheaded by a mortal (as happened often in previous centuries), with no other Immortal nearby, there's no Quickening. The death is like anyone else's. But despite many Quickenings having been irretrievably lost, belief in the Gathering persists.

One rule is always observed in Immortal combat: there's no killing on "holy ground." And a great many types of that are recognized. While they don't know for sure, Immortals have inherited a tradition that Quickenings taken on holy ground might have catastrophic results - not only killing the victor in the fight, but destroying entire cities. It's believed that to be on the safe side, they don't risk killing even _mortals_ on holy ground.

Other "rules" are not universally observed. _Honorable_ Immortals won't gang up on an opponent...disable him with a gunshot before taking his head...attack him when he's unarmed...or attack him while he's (briefly) weakened by having just received a Quickening.

An organization called the Watchers is made up of ordinary mortals, who secretly (for the most part) observe Immortals and record their history. The Society of Watchers has existed for four thousand years.

From that description, it doesn't seem like anything I'd want to read about, much less write about. But _Highlander: The Series_ was enthralling, for two reasons. The producers struck gold with the casting; and at least some of the writing was superb. Characters viewers really cared about had to deal with guilt, forgiveness, the demands of friendship, conflicting loyalties, and crushing losses.

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Duncan MacLeod was born in the Highlands of Scotland in 1592, and became a full Immortal when he was "killed" in a battle between rival clans at about age 30. His first Immortal teacher was _Connor_ MacLeod, a century older. They had, of course, no reason to think they were actually related.

In 1815, when he was a British soldier fighting in the Battle of Waterloo, he met an Immortal priest, Darius, who was there to tend the wounded. Darius became his mentor, though he was never able to accept the priest's total pacifism. Darius himself had been a warrior until, in about 400 CE, he was "converted" by the Quickening of an ancient holy man he slew at the gates of Paris. _He_ was killed, tragically, in 1993 - by renegade Watchers. So his Quickening is one of those that have been lost.

When Darius took that holy man's head, he experienced what might be thought of as a "Light Quickening." Unfortunately, what's more common is a _Dark_ Quickening, in which _evil_ personality-fragments try to _possess_ an Immortal who's taken them into himself. MacLeod has gone through that, and successfully fought them off.

Also important in his life, in a very different way than Darius, is a beautiful Immortal _thief_ , Amanda. They've been on-and-off lovers for centuries - good for each other "in small doses," but not long-term.

In 1980, he met his great love - a mortal French woman, talented sculptor Tessa Noel. She was the first mortal lover he told of his Immortality, the only woman he'd ever lived with a significant length of time (thirteen years). But in 1993, when they were planning to marry, Tessa was kidnapped by another of those renegade Watchers. MacLeod succeeded in rescuing her. But while she was standing outside the Watcher's house, waiting for him to finish up _in_ side, she was accosted and killed by a mugger.

MacLeod had taken a teenaged pre-Immortal, Richie Ryan, under his wing. Richie was shot and "killed" at the same time as Tessa, but he came back to life as a full Immortal. He and MacLeod went on to have a wonderful friendship. But in May of 1997, MacLeod was caught up - much against his will - in a struggle with a _Zoroastrian demon_ , Ahriman. ( _Not_ a fan-favorite storyline!) And Ahriman tricked him into beheading Richie. That was the most devastating experience of his life; it almost cost him his sanity.

MacLeod had learned about the Watchers in 1993. His own Watcher, Joe Dawson, has become a close friend. Dawson had been critically wounded during the Vietnam War - lost both legs. He would have died if he hadn't been rescued by an Immortal. But he'd seen that other man alive, seemingly uninjured, when _he_ should have been dead. So a Watcher had approached him, explained what he'd seen, and recruited him for their organization - in the process, giving him a reason to go on living.

MacLeod and Dawson have another close friend: the oldest living Immortal, the 5000-year-old Methos. They're among a very few who know this person is Methos - because he, as supposed mortal "Adam Pierson," infiltrated the Watchers and wangled the assignment of heading the search for himself. To assure that he won't be "found"!

All Methos knows for sure is that he's _at least_ 5000 years old. He doesn't remember anything before what he assumes was the shock of receiving his first Quickening. Back in the Bronze Age, he spent a thousand years as a ruthless killer. He and three fellow Immortals were a group of marauders - the real-life "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Methos represented Death; Kronos, Silas, and Caspian were, respectively, Pestilence, War, and Famine. That came to light when Kronos sought to reunite the Horsemen in February 1997, and it almost destroyed MacLeod's friendship with Methos. But Methos, realizing his long-ago "brother" Kronos was now a complete megalomaniac, ultimately helped MacLeod take him down. MacLeod came to acknowledge that people _can_ change for the better...and Methos had done so.

A further note: In the 1990s, MacLeod was dividing his time between two favorite locales: the Pacific Northwest (the fictional city of Seacouver, WA) and Paris, France. When Tessa was alive, they owned and operated an antique shop in Seacouver. After her death, the shop held too many painful memories; so he sold it and bought a dojo (a martial arts training facility), also in Seacouver. When he's there, he lives in a loft apartment over the dojo; in France, in a houseboat on the Seine. (It's called a "barge," but it's different from the American understanding of a barge.) The dojo probably isn't profitable, but MacLeod has saved enough over the centuries that he doesn't have to rely on it. In France, it's taken for granted that he's living on income from whatever type of business he owns in the U.S. _Joe Dawson_ owns two bars, in Seacouver and Paris.

 _Highlander: The Series_ didn't end in a very dramatic way. Star Adrian Paul had persuaded the producers to go along with his ending idea rather than the writers'; and his idea was the better of the two. The writers had wanted a happy ending in which the main characters were drinking a toast, with a wink to the audience. _Adrian_ wanted an ending in which MacLeod was walking out of his friends' lives - "into an uncertain future" - because he'd realized that just being near him placed those friends, mortal and Immortal, in danger. But then, they didn't change enough in the scripts to make it clear. I, at least, thought merely that MacLeod was symbolically walking out of _viewers'_ lives.

In hindsight, there was a problem with Adrian's idea. By the time the series ended, the actors knew there'd be a movie, set a few years later, in which MacLeod would still be living in Paris, and keeping in touch with both Joe and Methos! 

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A follow-up series, _Highlander: The Raven_ , attempted to make Amanda a lead character, and lasted only a year. Its most interesting character was the male co-lead, cop-turned-private-security-agent Nick Wolfe. The best of several supporting characters was another Immortal priest, Liam Riley - who was a longtime friend of Amanda's, despite her thieving ways. Throughout the season, viewers were given hints that Nick was a pre-Immortal. In the finale, an Immortal named Evan Peyton poisoned him. We were told - for the first time (grrr!) - that death from a slow-acting poison, despite its being murder, would be _final_ death for a pre-Immortal. After overpowering Peyton, Amanda ignored his attempt to bargain for his life with what he claimed was an antidote, and beheaded him. Then, without explaining and giving Nick a choice, she shot him and made him Immortal. The show ended with his coming back to life - very angry at not having been given that choice.

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Everything I've said thus far about the nature of Immortals, and about storylines, is canon. The _Highlander_ franchise also included four films, and an intended fifth that was so bad - in concept, writing, and production values - that it was never given a theatrical release, just aired on TV (the Sci-Fi Channel). _None_ of the films equaled _HL:TS_ in quality. But the first was the actual beginning of the franchise, and "inspired" the better things that came later. The fourth - the one set a few years after _HL:TS_ \- had some good ideas...and, I admit, gave _me_ some ideas. So in my series, I deal with both of them.

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In my fictional universe, MacLeod and his intimates - who'll come to include Nick - make discoveries about Immortals' births and blood relationships. MacLeod has a very long life...which ends in a way the man who mourned Darius could never have foreseen. And the story of his death is connected with my explanation of the origin and destiny of the Immortal race.


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